Blues Traveler jam on at The Grand

Above: John Popper of Blues Traveler performing at The Grand Tuesday night. Click here for a full gallery.

John Popper of Blues Traveler toasted Wilmington five times during his band’s boozy and engaging set at The Grand Tuesday night, routinely lifting up the several red Solo cups surrounding him to salute his fans.

“Here’s to the good people of Wilmington,” Popper announced early, holding his drink up high. “This is a very cool place and nobody knows about it.”

It was a busy night for the band’s stage manager/bartender, who not only kept the show running in his role as “harmonica sheriff” as Popper cracked, but also refilling the band’s drinks when needed, mixing them right behind the drum kit on stage.

From the beginning, Popper & Co. were in good moods, waving the crowd to walk up to the lip of the stage to fill the pit area transforming the sometimes staid theater setting into more of a club atmosphere, kicking off the show with harp-laced version of Sublime’s “What I Got.”

Above:Blues Traveler’s show at The Grand was the band’s first in Delaware since its 2000 show in Dewey Beach.

It was there where dancing fans watched Popper in his trademark stance underneath his familiar black hat: hands clutching a custom modified harmonica microphone with his head turned slightly to the heavens, belting out the songs that made him famous and wowing with his virtuosic harp playing.
The alternative rock/blues/jam band squeezed all of its best-known songs into its hour and forty-five-minute set, including radio hits “Hook,” “Run-Around” and “But Anyway.” But mixed in were the fluid jams that have kept the band afloat for the 25 years since forming in Princeton, N.J. in 1987. (Yes, it has been that long. Don’t you feel old now?)

A few songs from the band’s newest album, “Suzie Cracks the Whip,” which fueled the band’s best Billboard position since 2001’s “Bridge,” were welcome additions, especially the radio-friendly “You Don’t Have to Love Me.” But it was the more muscular, driving songs that worked best, most notably a rollicking version of “Carolina Blues.”

It was not the band’s first performance in Delaware. The five-piece had previously performed at the old Stone Balloon in Newark in 1991, three years before the band’s breakthrough release, “four.” In 2000, they returned, but this time to the Baycenter in Dewey Beach for a 23-song show that ended with an encore performance of Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry.” In 2002, they played The Grand for the first time.

Above: John Popper of Blues Traveler in a familiar pose.

Twelve years after the Dewey show, “No Woman” was performed once again — this time in Wilmington, where Marley lived on and off with his mother. The local tie was not lost on bassist Tad Kinchla who mentioned the connection, saying he learned it from this year’s terrific new documentary, “Marley.”

That gave Popper an opening, joking that his bassist was just showing off his Wikipedia-found knowledge on the city. “What’s next? A song about the textile output of Wilmington?” he asked.

The band worked the crowd throughout the night with Popper throwing harmonicas out to them, even causing a pile-up on the ground when one fell to the ground. “It hit the 90-year-old grandma in the wheelchair,” Popper deadpanned.

Later, his funniest line came after guitarist Chan Kinchla leaned over and let fans slap away at his guitar strings during a solo. Even before he was finished, Popper could be heard flatly saying, “Now you all have hepatitis.”

Promising Wilmington upstarts Villains Like You opened the show, previewing several songs off the band’s second full-length release in as many years, a 15-track album tentatively titled “Villains, Cowards, & Saints” due in early 2013.

The band’s own harmonica player Robert Schuler made the most out of his appearance before Popper, thrashing around as he played. And it paid off. Before Popper closed out his own set, he gave Schuler some appropriate praise. “Their harp player was killer,” he announced.

After the show was over and the fans had cut through a silent Wilmington night to head home, Popper’s toasting wasn’t over.

The guys in Villains Like You were across the street at Chelsea Tavern having some celebratory drinks when Popper walked in all by his lonesome. He then chatted with the band for about an hour, but not before lifting up a shot glass with them and heading back to his life on the road.

The Blues Traveler setlist:

About Ryan Cormier

News Journal features reporter Ryan Cormier throws everything pop culture into a blender and hits frappe. Check out his take on music, movies, celebrities and everything in between. It's what you need to know and a lot more stuff you really don't. Join him on Twitter and Facebook.

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